Sailing boats crowd the water off Russell at the star of last year’s Tall Ships race, with title winner R Tucker Thompson at right.
Photo: RNZ / Peter de Graaf

One of the Bay of Islands’ great maritime spectacles returned at noon on Saturday, when the starting signal sounded for the annual Tall Ships Race.

Organised by the Russell Boating Club every summer for the past 49 years, the event is touted as a celebration of sail rather than a serious race.

That, however, doesn’t make the competitors any less determined to win – or lessen the annual, mostly light-hearted, controversy over the handicap system used to decide placings.

Club commodore Bruce Mitchinson said 45 vessels had registered as of 8am, but organisers were busy signing up a rush of last-minute entrants on Saturday morning.

Conditions were superb with a cloudless sky and a light southwesterly, which was expected to pick up as the sea breeze kicked in around midday.

The afternoon forecast was for a 10-knot southerly.

“It’s more of a fun race, though we get some people who are pretty serious about it. It’s a reasonable length, 12 to 15 nautical miles, so it gives people some time on the water, and then of course we have the prizegiving and a hāngī.”

As in past years racing would take place in four divisions, Mitchinson said.

The tall ships division was open to vessels of two or more masts and more than 30 feet (9.1m) on deck, while the classic invitational was dedicated to historic vessels.

A separate junk-rig division would be offered for just the third year, while an all-comers division was open to any sailing boat as long as it measured at least 22 feet (6.7 metres) on deck.

The course started and finished off Russell wharf with the distance depending on the division.

More than 70 vessels took part last year with the oldest, the Kerikeri-built Undine, dating back to 1877.

The winner of last year’s coveted tall ships trophy was the R Tucker Thompson, a 60-foot gaff-rigged topsail schooner based at Ōpua and used as a youth training ship.

The post-race festivities at Matauwhi Bay Reserve were as keenly anticipated as the racing itself, with a huge hāngī catering to 800 people and two bands, one acoustic, one rock, playing until midnight.